Hillary Clinton approved plan hatched by campaign aide to ‘smear’ Trump with Russia collusion: declassified docs

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton signed off on a plan hatched by a top campaign adviser to “smear” then-candidate Donald Trump with false claims of Russian collusion and distract from her own mounting email scandal during the 2016 campaign, according to explosive intelligence files declassified Thursday.

The intelligence came from two memos obtained by the Obama administration in the lead-up to Election Day that laid out “confidential conversations” between leaders of the Democratic National Committee — including then-Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz — and liberal billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

The plot, the brainchild of the Clinton campaign’s then-foreign policy adviser, Julianne Smith, included “raising the theme of ‘Putin’s support for Trump’” and “subsequently steering public opinion toward the notion that it needs to equate” the Russian leader’s political influence campaign with actual hacking of election infrastructure.

Smith would go on to serve as former President Joe Biden’s ambassador to NATO. “I don’t have any comment,” she told The Post when reached by phone Thursday.

Open Society senior vice president Leonard Benardo was looped in on the scheme and laid out its intended effect in a series of emails in late July 2016.

“Julie [sic] says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump,” Benardo was quoted as writing July 25. “Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later the FBI will put more oil into the fire.”

Two days later, Benardo wrote: “HRC approved Julia’s idea about Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections. That should distract people from her own missing email, especially if the affair goes to the Olympic level,” an apparent reference to revelations of a massive state-sponsored doping campaign by Russia following the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

“The point is making the Russian play a U.S. domestic issue,” Benardo also stated. “In absence of direct evidence, Crowdstrike and ThreatConnect will supply the media, and GRU [Russia’s foreign intelligence arm] will hopefully carry on to give more facts.”

Special counsel John Durham uncovered the intelligence during a multi-year probe into intelligence activities during the 2016 election.

Durham consulted the FBI and CIA, both of which assessed that the information was “likely authentic” but couldn’t corroborate exact copies of the Benardo emails with Open Society Foundations. The CIA also determined that the intelligence was not “the product of Russian fabrications.”

“Smith was, at minimum, playing a role in the Clinton campaign’s efforts to tie Trump to Russia,” Durham concluded.

The Trump-Russia investigation was part of what a March 2016 memo included in the annex described as a “two-prong DP [Democratic Party] opposition [that] is focused on discrediting Trump…. [a]mong other things, the Clinton staff, with support from special services, is preparing scandalous revelations of business relations between Trump and the ‘Russian Mafia.’”

The “special services” cited in one of the memos referred to intelligence activities of Obama’s CIA and FBI, which may have included the work of “Trump dossier author Christopher Steele.”

The memos also claim then-President Barack Obama was “put[ing] pressure on FBI Director James Comey through Attorney General [Loretta] Lynch” to wrap up the probe of Clinton’s use of a private email server to receive highly classified information while secretary of state.

“Obama,” a January 2016 memo read, “has no intention to darken the final part of his presidency and ‘legacy’ by the scandal surrounding the main contender from the [Democratic Party].”

The March 2016 memo claimed the 44th president had “sanctioned the use of all administrative levers to remove possibly negative effects from the FBI investigation of cases related to the Clinton Foundation and the email correspondence in the State Department.”

In December 2016, Obama ordered a post-election intelligence assessment of nefarious Russian activity surrounding that year’s election.

That assessment, published in January 2017 included — over the objections of senior CIA officials — details from the Steele dossier, an opposition research project funded in part by Clinton’s campaign and the DNC.

In March 2016, then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe shared the memos with senior officials at the Department of Justice, suggesting a plot to launch an investigation based on the Democratic campaign document.

“During the first stage of the campaign, due to lack of direct evidence, it was decided to disseminate the necessary information through the FBI-affiliated … technical structures … in particular, the Crowdstrike and ThreatConnect companies, from where the information would then be disseminated through leading U.S. publications,” one Benardo email read.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and other members of the US Intelligence Community declassified the Durham annex at the request of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

“Based on the Durham annex, the Obama FBI failed to adequately review and investigate intelligence reports showing the Clinton campaign may have been ginning up the fake Trump-Russia narrative for Clinton’s political gain, which was ultimately done through the Steele Dossier and other means,” Grassley said in a statement.

“These intelligence reports and related records, whether true or false, were buried for years. History will show that the Obama and Biden administration’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies were weaponized against President Trump,” he added.

“This political weaponization has caused critical damage to our institutions and is one of the biggest political scandals and cover-ups in American history. The new Trump administration has a tremendous responsibility to the American people to fix the damage done and do so with maximum speed and transparency.”

Ratcliffe said in a statement that the files — some of which came from the CIA — showed “a coordinated plan to prevent and destroy Donald Trump’s presidency.”

Bondi and Patel insisted that the public disclosures would restore Americans’ trust in the government and provide accountability.

“This Department of Justice, alongside the CIA, is committed to truth and transparency and will continue to support good-faith efforts by Congress to hold our government accountable,” Bondi said. “Chairman Grassley is leading by example and shining light on critical issues of great interest to the American people.”

“The American people deserve the full, unfiltered truth about the Russia collusion hoax and the political abuse of our justice system it exposed,” added Patel. “Today’s declassification and release of documents tied to the Durham report is another step toward that accountability.”

“I’m grateful to Chairman Grassley for his steadfast leadership on this issue, and I look forward to our continued partnership in exposing one of the most shameful frauds ever perpetrated on the American public.”

The Post reached out to reps for Clinton and the Open Society Foundations for comment.